Premeditated (22 page)

“Now, Dinah … you wouldn’t really spray me, would you?”

“I’m not hearing any convincing reasons not to.”

“Um … this is my school uniform?”

Brooks backed as far away as the cramped floor plan of the tree house would allow.

“That’s why God invented dry cleaners,” I said, shaking the can again. “If they can handle puke, soda’s no problem.”

He raised his hands protectively.

“I’m too cute to drench?”

“Your negotiation skills need some serious improvements.”

“Can I play on your sympathies and claim it might get in my eyes, therefore blinding me for life or at least two minutes?”

“There’s more water; I can dump it on your head after and rinse them out.”

“Nice girls don’t attack people with soft drinks?”

“Sorry, I’m not that nice.”

“Hey … what’s that?”

He tried the lamest trick possible, and I’m the idiot who fell for it. True, I had my reasons—number one being that I was afraid he’d seen Tabs; it didn’t even occur to me that he was creating a diversion.

I turned my head and he made a run for the rope elevator.

With my nemesis escaping, I pulled the tab and the can lurched in my hand, leaving Brooks dripping cherry soda onto the floor.

“Now you’ve done it,” he said.

I had to dodge the cupcake when he pitched it toward me—another diversion, which he used to reach my soda stash and start shaking a can of his own.

“Don’t you—”

The “dare” was drowned by an explosion of soda hitting me square in the face. We both dove for the last unopened can and chased it when it rolled off toward the ledge and finally over, denying anyone the last shot.

“I guess that makes us even,” Brooks said. “Can we declare a cease fire?”

During the scramble, we ended up on the floor. I rolled off my stomach, pushing away from the edge of the tree house where I’d landed. Brooks did the same, at almost the same time, and we stopped, facing each other.

Impossible or not, the air between and around us grew thick and heavy, hovering over our heads and pressing down. We were too close to each other, so close I wanted to believe it was only some kind of static from his clothes or mine that made my arms and legs prickle. I wanted to believe it was the rush of adrenaline from laughter and fighting over soda cans that made my breathing hitch. I wanted to believe no other explanation was possible.

Brooks became the bottle labeled “Drink Me,” altering the reality I accepted as true.

Gravity or inertia or any scientific phenomena other than
the impossibility of attraction took over. I’d have taken the easy out of a small earthquake or a heavy wind if it meant explaining how his mouth ended up on mine. But there was no explanation and no excuse. Everything from time to the rotation of the earth itself stopped dead, and the shock made my arms and legs useless. The only thing moving was my stomach as it somersaulted through my abdomen.

He tasted like sugar frosting, sweet and sticky, the kind of thing you know you shouldn’t enjoy but can’t help yourself. That taste mixed with the cherry soda still on my own face, creating a permanent paradox in my brain. Better sense told me Brooks was evil, but my senses—taste and smell, even the feel of his damp hair in my hands, redefined things to make me think he was something I wanted more of. I was a diabetic, and Brooks was the super-sweet thing that was going to kill me someday.

If his phone hadn’t picked that exact moment to signal an incoming call, someday would have been right then and there. We pulled apart awkwardly while Brooks attempted (and failed) to retrieve his phone from its pocket without moving.

“I got it,” I said. I used the back of my other hand to wipe my mouth, excusing it with a mumbled “frosting” as I pulled myself up to sit.

“Sorry.”

Brooks actually blushed when he took the phone from me. Our hands touched, causing another spark that put my stomach back to its original place. My heart was going so fast and loud, I was expecting to stroke out any second.

I had kissed him.

No …

He had kissed me.

No …

What difference did it make? We’d kissed. My lips had touched the lips of the guy who had put Claire in the hospital. Lips that had kissed Claire, and told her things to make her giggle and dream; lips that had shut tight, refusing to acknowledge her existence.

The cherry soda I had no choice but to smell with every breath turned rancid. All that heat and electricity I’d felt before settled in my face until I could imagine it blistering from the inside, disfiguring me so everyone would know what I’d done. I deserved to wear my shame in public.

My hands, now fists, had clenched so tight I’d forced all the blood out of them. I wanted to put them around Brooks’ neck and squeeze until his skin turned just as white and lifeless; then I’d do the same to myself. I’d betrayed Claire; traitors were supposed to be executed.

An angry rant came from Brooks’ phone, muffled, as it was on the other side of his head, but there was no question the person calling was shouting.

“What are you talking about?” Brooks asked. “Slow down. Dad, no. Calm down. Someone’s made a mistake, my interview wasn’t scheduled for today. Neither of them were. No! I have them on my calendar. Wednesday and Friday. No, I didn’t email them. No! Dad, I swear, I wouldn’t do that. Dad. Dad. Dad!” Brooks dropped the hand with his phone into his lap. “He hung up.”

The choke hold he’d put on my thoughts broke, and I allowed myself to breathe again. It didn’t matter that I’d slipped off my goal—Brucey’s emails to the college recruiters had done
their job. There was another black mark on Brooks’ spotless record, and my mistake (aka the kiss) hadn’t ruined anything other than my desire to eat cupcakes or drink cherry soda for the foreseeable future.

“I have to go.” Brooks’ voice turned as hollow as the empty glaze in his eyes. “My dad …”

“Don’t tell me someone emailed him the video, too.” Miraculously, my voice still worked.

He shook his head, still staring at the phone in his lap. He hadn’t even stood up.

“College recruiters …”

“Someone sent it to college recruiters?”

I kicked myself for not thinking of that one.

“No. I had interviews this week on Wednesday and Friday, but the recruiters called the house upset because I wasn’t in either of their offices today. Dad heard the message, so he called them back, saying there’d been some kind of mistake. But someone had emailed them and changed my interview schedule at the last minute. I have to go. I’m sorry. I just … I have to go now.”

Just like that, the kiss was forgotten. Brooks didn’t use the pulley to get down; he chose to climb—anything to extend the trip home, I guess. He walked around the house instead of cutting through, and got in his car and left, chanting “He’s going to kill me” the whole way.

Knowing what little I did of his dad, I couldn’t even say it was out of the question.

“You were brilliant!”

Tabs burst out of the house, where she’d hidden after she’d finished her part in the next phase of our plan. Since there was
no way to get to Brooks’ car when it was at his house, and no way for Tabs or Brucey to get into the Lowry lot to reach it during school, we settled on luring him to my house, where the car would be in the open. His dad’s phone call was a bonus.

In five minutes, Brucey would report an erratic driver to the police, who would pull Brooks over and find the minibar Tabs had just stashed behind his seat. As out of it as he was, they’d probably give him a Breathalyzer on the spot.

“Did you do it?” I asked, horrified that someone had actually seen the kiss.

“Yeah. There’s a half-empty bottle of vodka, minus fingerprints, under the seat with a couple of empty beer cans I found beside the Dumpster at the bodega. I threw in Mom’s expired pain pills from the dentist, too. Don’t worry, I didn’t leave the bottle, just the pills in a Baggie. No names.”

Vicodin and vodka would definitely get some attention.

“The way he tore out of here, we might not need Brucey’s call,” she said. “I bet he was doing ninety-five by the time he hit the main road. Why are you not celebrating? This is a good thing, isn’t it?”

“What?” I asked, barely listening. “Yeah, of course it’s a good thing. Why wouldn’t it be?”

“If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were flirting for real. Dinah, please tell me I know better.”

I didn’t answer her. Tabs is one of the only people in the world who can tell when I’m lying, and even though I wanted to say “Yes, it was all an act, none of that was real,” I couldn’t. I was terrified she’d see a truth I wasn’t entirely sure of myself.

I didn’t sleep well that night, so it was a good thing that neither Uncle Paul nor Aunt Helen dropped by the house where they could see me pacing the downstairs. I couldn’t get Brooks’ face out of my head.

That look of hopelessness and horror he’d worn—
I’d put it there
.

The way he had to force himself to hold his breath and run to make it to his car before he changed his mind—
I’d done that
.

The feeling of hopeless claustrophobia as his world began to collapse in on him for no apparent reason—
I’d caused it
.

Me
.

It
should
have been a moment of triumph. I was
supposed
to be the good guy in all this, Claire’s avenger in the real world while Mitch was on duty guarding the angel room. I wasn’t the one who’d hurt someone who didn’t deserve it, so why was I the one with the malfunctioning conscience that insisted on screaming at me at two in the morning?

And I couldn’t stop thinking about that kiss, either. I was still trying my best to push it out of my sleep-deprived mind when I dragged myself into Lowry’s main hall the next morning. Sure, going moon-eyed and tripping over my own tongue would have sold the idea that I was falling for Brooks, but I was hoping to find a way to pull off a fake fall while maintaining a
healthy distance. Preferably one that didn’t involve references to anyone’s tongue renting space in the wrong mouth.

“You look awful.” Dex fell into step beside me at the base of the staircase. “Actually, you look hungover. I thought you’d sworn off partying in favor of hospital duty.”

“I’m sleepwalking,” I said. “Which means I’m not legally liable for my actions—something you should keep in mind.”

“Have you thought about it?”

“Pushing you over the bannister to stop your voice from echoing in my head? Yes. I’m thinking about it right now. Would you rather hit the marble, or do you want me to aim for a fish to break your fall?”

I’ve been drunk exactly once in my life (Brucey tried to make sangria punch out of Kool-Aid, wine coolers, and canned fruit cocktail—long story, bad ending), and the headache I had the morning after was nothing compared to the elephant tap-line currently prancing behind my eyes.

“Have you thought about the carnival,” he clarified. “You aren’t still mad at me, are you?”

“Maybe.”

“Maybe you’re mad or maybe you’ll go with me?”

“Pick one.”

It felt like one of those tap-dancing elephants was twirling a fire baton. When I closed my eyes, there were actual sparks.

“The season’s closing at the end of the week, and I’m not afraid of begging in public. I’ll get on my knees right here on the stairs and everyone will think it’s charming and romantic.”

“Try desperate and pathetic.”

I pulled him back up by the arm, dragging him with me as I continued to climb.

“There, now we’re even for the arm thing. You have no excuse to say no.”

“Fine! Stop bugging me and I’ll upgrade you to a definite maybe.”

“I’ll take it.”

The idiot kissed me on the cheek and ran the rest of the stairs two at a time. I lugged myself to trig at half his pace, relying on the hope that Brooks would look worse than I felt to get me there, but Brooks wasn’t in his seat.

Class started and he never came in.

He wasn’t in the hall before history, and my attempted inquiry to Chandi about where he’d gone was cut off by Dex’s arrival and her quick escape into the room.

By lunch, curiosity was turning into worry. I’d been betting on Brooks’ mood to get him pulled over, but it could just have easily distracted him into crashing his car. Instead of walking a straight line for the highway patrol, he could have ended up in the hospital, or put someone else there if he hit another car instead of a tree or guardrail. Surely, I thought, if Brooks was in trouble, one of his friends would know, and then the whole school would.

I hadn’t heard so much as a whisper, and didn’t until last period, when he showed up in class.

“Where have you been?” I slid into the seat next to him.

“At the hospital annex, in their blood lab,” he said.

“Are you sick?”

“Sick would be an improvement. A brain tumor would be an improvement. Right now,
dead
would be an improvement. Sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”

He straightened in his seat long enough to answer the roll call, then ducked back down.

“If you’re not sick, then why were you at the hospital?”

“For a drug test.”

The picture in his lap was stuck in a holding pattern. Brooks traced and retraced the same lines, making them darker and wider until he scratched through the paper. He ripped it out and started over.

“I got stopped two blocks from home after I left your place. I wasn’t thinking about speed limits, just trying to defuse my dad. The cop said I was doing ninety-seven.”

“You didn’t argue with him, did you? That only makes it worse.”

“No, I didn’t argue. I told him I had an emergency at home and that I hadn’t been paying attention. But whoever’s got it in for me must have gotten bored with taking shots from behind their computer.”

“I don’t get it. What happened?” I hoped I sounded more curious than eager.

“He was going to let me off with a warning, until a quarter-full bottle of vodka rolled out from under my seat.”

Another sheet of paper died a horrible, inky death.

“Someone stashed the bottle in my car, along with empty beer cans and enough pills that the cop dragged me down to the police station. They towed my car. They called my dad. This isn’t funny anymore, Dinah.”